MILLSBORO, Del. - Marylandian -- Aquia Inc., a cloud and cybersecurity-focused digital services company, today announced it has been selected as the recipient of the 2024 Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) of the Year award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU).

The award was presented to Aquia Co-Founder and CEO, David Maskeroni, at a ceremony on Tues., April 2, at the Small Business National Training Conference, hosted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Roybal Campus in Atlanta.

"We believe that this award is a well-deserved honor, reflecting the hard work, dedication, and innovative spirit that Aquia Inc. embodies," said a representative from the HHS OSDBU. "As a recipient of this esteemed award, Aquia joins a select group of companies that represent the pinnacle of achievement within the small business government contracting industrial base. We are confident that this recognition will further enhance the company's reputation and open new opportunities for growth and success."

The 2024 SDVOSB of the Year award acknowledges Aquia's superior performance and valuable support in the achievement of the mission requirements of HHS. Founded in 2021, Aquia proudly supports the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) within HHS on a number of digital transformation initiatives, including:

• Cloud Application Security Program (CASP): supporting CASP's four major workstreams: Zero Trust, Threat Modeling, Software as a Service (SaaS) Governance, and Strategic Information initiatives.
• HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG): playing a key role in helping the agency to adopt a cloud-based strategy to modernize its operations and find efficiencies.
• Continuous Authorization and Verification Engine (batCAVE): supporting the CMS platform-as-a-service, batCAVE, with a focus on reducing compliance burden, maximizing control inheritance, accelerating authority to operate (ATO) times, facilitating a faster, more secure developer experience for application development organizations (ADOs), and advancing CMS cloud zero trust priorities.
• Support for Enterprise Architecture Services Information Technology (SEAS IT): supporting the development of an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) platform that will leverage generative AI (genAI) to relieve user burden across CMS.
• Cybersecurity Integration Center Operations (CCIC OPS): supporting CMS and the CMS Healthcare Marketplace with cybersecurity services.

"I am incredibly honored to accept this award on behalf of Aquia, a testament not just to our team's dedication but also to the vision we've pursued from the outset," said David Maskeroni, co-founder and CEO of Aquia. "My time as a senior leader at CMS instilled in me an imperative for excellence in government services. It is this foundational experience that has guided Aquia's mission to innovate and enhance government operations for the betterment of the American people. Winning the SDVOSB of the Year for the Department of Health and Human Services is a powerful affirmation of our commitment to making a tangible, positive impact on public service."

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About Aquia Inc.

Securing The Digital Transformation ®

Aquia is a cloud and cybersecurity-focused digital services company. We provide engineering and advisory expertise for secure software delivery; security automation; SaaS security; cloud-native architecture; and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) innovation.

We are passionate about helping mission owners pursue digital modernization, adopt innovative technologies, and navigate complex regulatory and compliance landscapes.

Founded in 2021 by United States veterans, we are a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) passionate about making our country digitally capable and secure, and driving transformational change across the public and private sectors. As an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advanced Tier partner, we help companies pursue innovation, reduce costs, and scale their operations efficiently. Learn more at aquia.us.